Not really surprising that they'd be pretty unhealthy. Professional gaming is less than lucrative for the vast majority of aspirants and putting in the hours required to be competitive while holding down a day job doesn't leave many hours for sleep or anything else.

It's a lot like the professional gambling circuit, though with less evading your creditors when you lose.

Weasel headline if I ever saw one - this was only a measure of cardiovascular fitness!

Heck, I get a burning feeling in my upper legs after climbing only one flight of stairs. However, my blood pressure is 110/70, my cholesterol and triglycerides are spot-on, and my doctor said I am probably going to live forever.

Couldn't you say the same thing about professional chess players? They seem to get a lot more respect. Isn't this headline incredibly generalizing. Comparing a single case (the guy with the fitness level of a 60-year-old chain smoker) to a whole group ('top gamers')

Couldn't you say the same thing about professional chess players? They seem to get a lot more respect. Isn't this headline incredibly generalizing. Comparing a single case (the guy with the fitness level of a 60-year-old chain smoker) to a whole group ('top gamers')

I'd say cultural bias due to the lack of boomer participation in gaming.

Chess, for better or worse, is widely seen as an intellectual pursuit even though it's an exercise in memorization and recall for players at most skill levels.

Video gaming on the other hand is still seen as child's play regardless of the actual demographics and merits. It's also portrayed as a scourge of modern society, and functions as a key indicator of sustained immaturity for modern males in their twenties and thirties. (Since it's not PC to talk about the causes of male immaturity, the media latches on to the effects instead.)

Negative studies and articles about gaming get money and print space. The more absurdist the story, the more interest there is. Not so much for studies and articles about chess players, unless they tie into how the world is going to get overrun by AI robots.

Mental health related issues are probably much more frequent than physical issues.

As a casual gamer, I've come across and been associated with some professional gamers and more times than not, the best of them are a litttttttle bit unstable.

Usually any profession that calls for top notch reflexes and lightning fast strategy analysis, you come across eccentrics and a wide pallet of syndromes and disorders-- whether it be chess, science, mathematics, video games or war, a lot of these folks fly far under the social radar or stand out like a hot pink lobster in a sea of grey guppies; only extremes, no middle ground. But as with every generalization, there are of course exceptions!

Originally Posted by LandisAs a casual gamer, I've come across and been associated with some professional gamers and more times than not, the best of them are a litttttttle bit unstable.

I've personally been in a league of approximately the couple hundred best players of DotA (a warcraft 3 Mod map) and also in a Division 2 clan. The stress and need for perfection is immense, which is also the reason why I stopped playing. From what I've noticed most of the players are actually fairly stable, not at all as weird as people would think. Of course they will get annoyed and have temper tantrums if people fail, but this is what is required at such a high level.

Couldn't you say the same thing about professional chess players? They seem to get a lot more respect. Isn't this headline incredibly generalizing. Comparing a single case (the guy with the fitness level of a 60-year-old chain smoker) to a whole group ('top gamers')

chess playing is actually beneficial to other aspects of your life though(minus social life)

delinquents probably do significantly better in their schooling and work by playing chess

I'm not debating whether you learn more usefull skills from chess then from videogames. I'm adressing the article which is clearly about health.

"Someone of this age should be much fitter but perhaps this is the occupational hazard of the professional gamer who can spend around 10 hours per day in front of a computer screen practicing,"

I believe that spending 10 hours behind a chess board can be unhealthy as well.

Many people spend 10 hours a day behind a computer for their job.

Spending a lot of time on one activity isn't necessarily bad for your health. You just have to make sure that you also get enough exercise. Not only the pro-gamer but everybody. Lack of exercise is a major problem in western Society. Singling out the health of a single gamer to judge an entire group isn't proper journalism.

But let there be no mistake. I do believe that playing all day every day is not desirable, to me it seems like a waste of time. And of course, if you spend absurd amounts of time gaming there will be less time for exercise.

what do pro gamers gain? short attention span, horrible concentration outside of their gaming

when the pro gamers retire (22? 24?) they go back to society and try to work in a normal job that doesnt require the skills they gained in their pro gaming life

sorry bout the double post. --thought i hit edit on the first post

You realize that there aren't a lot of differences between video games and board games like chess, right? Why wouldn't real time strategy games (Civilization, Starcraft, Warcraft, Supreme Commander, etc.) build up one's "problem solving skills", "pattern recognition" and so on? The theory is generally the same: you and your opponent(s) each command troops and must form a strategy to defeat one another. If anything, due to the incredible amount of variables that come into play thanks to the depth that these games posses, I'd say the strategies for some of these games can be far more complex and the theorizing on probabilities that could fill one's head is identical in many ways to chess. The fact is that chess IS a real time strategy game.

I can see where you logic is coming from, but it's either not well thought out or you've been rather misinformed on the subject.